If anatomy is destiny, as Sigmund Freud once claimed, what does a person’s name predict?
Take the case of Ace Atkins. This is a tailor-made nomenclature for crime fiction, with an appropriate creepiness for a two-fisted detective hero. Think Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, John Shaft.
In earlier novels, Atkins introduced two such heroes, each with a similar three-syllable name, if perhaps less zip than his own.
One is Nick Travers, a former gridiron star turned New Orleans tight end. The other is Quinn Colson, an Army Ranger turned Mississippi sheriff.
Now, Atkins has a third, with a special name Memphis. He is seventy-year-old Porter Hayes, named by Atkins in homage to the indelible Stax songwriting team of David Porter and Isaac Hayes.
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Due June 25 from HarperCollins/William Morrow, Hayes’ debut adventure is titled “Don’t Let the Devil Pass,” and it may be thicker with Memphis references than anything that’s come off a printing press since that special edition of 2019 of The Commercial Appeal. which celebrated the city’s bicentennial.
The first two chapters alone contain references to Sam the Sham, The Commercial Appeal, Orange Mound, Germantown, 201 Poplar, Presbyterian Day School, Jerry “The King” Lawler, Ernest Withers, Cotton Carnaval, the Botanical Garden, and “Ben.” & Jerry’s from Whole Foods,” to name a few.
“Porter Hayes to me is to Memphis what Sam Spade is to San Francisco and Marlowe is to Los Angeles and Spencer is to Boston,” Atkins said in a recent interview, citing the city’s literary private eyes created by master writers Dashiell Hammett. , Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker (whose “Spenser” Atkins novels continued after the author’s death in 2010). “So he’s been knocking around in my brain for a long time.”
Atkins calls Memphis his “hometown.” He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, mother and two sons, but he crosses the state line into Tennessee probably more often than many residents of nearby municipalities like Southaven.
“I’m in Memphis all the time,” said Atkins, who has written about Memphis before (2002’s “Dark End of the Street” takes its name from a classic soul Goldwax album, while “Infamous” 2010 chronicles the career of Bluff City gangster “Machine Gun” Kelly), but never with such a Memphicentric focus. “Oxford is my hometown, but Memphis is my hometown, that’s how I feel about it.”
‘Charade’ in Memphis
A gritty thriller that alternates punches and punchlines in the manner of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen and HBO’s “Barry,” Don’t Let the Devil Ride is Atkins’ 31st novel since 1998 and another chapter in the increasingly high-profile former football star and newspaper reporter (“Ace Atkins” is a good vehicle for those jobs, too).
Champions of the book who contribute to the blurb include such fellow crime writers as SA Cosby, who calls the novel “an instant classic of Southern noir” and Don Winslow, who cites “its witty and clever storytelling “. In addition, it is already being developed as a possible limited series by HBO. (Atkins hopes the experience will be more satisfying than “Spenser Confidential,” starring Mark Wahlberg, a Netflix production based on a 2013 Atkins novel. Atkins calls the film “terrible.”)
Atkins cites a surprisingly excellent source for his new Memphis novel, with its blood splatters and barbecue sauce.
“The whole genesis was to make ‘Charade’ in Memphis,” he said, referring to the 1963 romantic comedy-thriller set in Paris, directed by “Singin’ in the Rain” auteur Stanley Donen. “Something with a comedic touch that also had darkness and a Hitchcockian aspect to it.”
The mention of “Charade” is typical of Atkins, who was “obsessed with movies” as a youth and remains an enthusiastic cinephile. But instead of the glamor of that movie, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Atkins gives us Hayes, a low-key black private detective who knows where all the Memphis bodies are buried, and Addison McKellar, a privileged white housewife— and betrayed – in Central Gardens. whose wine-drinking habits lend themselves to the story’s corkscrew plot.
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The novel’s large supporting cast includes a one-handed hitman (as in “Charade”), a crooked evangelist, a Russian “barbarian,” and an aging English actress who moves to Memphis to capitalize on her fame as a former -Elvis’ leading lady. . (The character is loosely based on the late Suzanna Leigh, the “Paradise, Hawaiian Style” star who did just that.)
Atkins said the book shows “different pockets of Memphis, everything from Central Gardens to Orange Mound, and even ordinary places, like Oak Court Mall.” The story takes place in 2010, he said, “so it’s nice to be able to bring back places that I thought would be around forever but are now gone, like Gay Hawk (a soul food restaurant) and Bon Ton (a mall of the city)”
From the web to the newsroom to the bookstore
A true son of the South, Atkins was born in Troy, Alabama. His name is William Atkins Jr., but “I’ve never been called anything but ‘Ace.’
His father was also called “Ace”. Atkins’ father – the first William “Ace” Atkins – was a professional football player and coach whose work took the family to Buffalo, San Francisco, St. Louis and Detroit. Until the family settled in Alabama after the father became a coach at Troy State, “It was like being in a military family,” Atkins said.
A communications major, Atkins played football at Auburn University for two years. A pass rusher, he landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1993 when Auburn went 11-0.
“I played in a lot of big games,” said Atkins (still pretty much in football games, at 6-3 and 250 pounds). “I had a great time, it was a good experience, but that’s not me. , that’s not who I am. The night of the senior banquet in Birmingham, 1993, I knew I was done with football. The next morning I headed straight and to Memphis”.
A soul music fanatic, “I knew I wanted to check out Stax Records. And you know what I found when I got there—a vacant lot.” (This was after the original Stax studio was torn down in 1989 and a decade before the Stax Museum of American Soul Music was built.) “So I got some bricks, some old linoleum. For a musical person, it was very depressing.”
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His depression was lifted, however, when he chanced upon the Beale Street Christmas parade – and discovered that the grand marshal was the great Stax recording artist and “Crown Prince of Dance,” Rufus Thomas. “I didn’t even know Rufus Thomas was alive,” Atkins said. “At that point, I knew I wanted to write about Memphis.”
First, Atkins wrote about real-life crime as a reporter—potentially, a good stop for any would-be novelist, from Hemingway to Hiaasen. Atkins’ first full-time job was with The Tampa Tribune, where the lively and turbulent pace of crime provided much inspiration. “I would write the books on weekends,” he said. “I would sit in my studio apartment and write.”
Unfortunately, “the newsroom culture was changing drastically,” he said. “The old newsroom of the first five years of my career was starting to corrode and a lot of fun was spreading. It was the death of that newsroom. The cuts started soon after that.”
The Tampa Tribune ceased publication in 2016, but Atkins left the business long ago, devoting himself full-time to his novels in 2001. The rest, as they say, is history — or, at least, kind of history recorded on websites such as “CrimeReads” and “Stop, you’re killing me!”
In the years to come, expect Memphis to continue to be a part of that history. Atkins said he plans to bring more clients through the doors of the Hayes Investigations office at Second and Madison, so Porter Hayes — a widower, Vietnam veteran and archetypal “good enough for all worlds” (for Chandler ) – to be able to dive deeper. in the mundane streets and social strata similar to the labyrinth of Memphis.
“There are many different versions of Memphis, and it just depends on what you want to see,” Atkins said. “It could be refined Memphis or rough Memphis. It could be people who were in the Hi Rhythm Section or people who went to Washington to participate in January 6th. I think it’s one of the most fascinating cities in America.”
Ace Atkins in Novel
Author Ace Atkins in public conversation with journalist and music historian Andria Lisle. Atkins will sign copies of “Don’t Let the Devil Ride” ($30, William Morrow), which is dedicated to Lisle.
6pm June 26 at Novel, 387 Perkins Ext.
Line tickets, available with book purchase at Novel, are required to meet the author.
For more information or to order the book, visit novelmemphis.com.
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Image Source : www.commercialappeal.com